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    Pharaoh

    Pharaoh

    Wilbur Smith

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    Book

    The Worldwide Number One Bestseller Wilbur Smith returns to Ancient Egypt in a captivating new novel...

No Rest for the Living (Death in a Northern Town #2)
No Rest for the Living (Death in a Northern Town #2)
Peter McKeirnon | 2014 | Fiction & Poetry, Horror, Humor & Comedy
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Contains spoilers, click to show
115 of 250
Kindle
No Rest for the Living ( Death in a Northern Town book 2)
By Peter McKeirnon

Once read a review will be written via Smashbomb and link posted in comments

"My name is John Diant. Father, brother, head of the anti-mayonnaise society and slayer of the living dead. It’s now over a day since I last updated this journal. Over a day since my daughter Emily, her boyfriend Jonathon and my retro friend 80s Dave and I made it to my brother's house. After fighting the undead population of Runcorn to get here, we thought we'd be safe but nothing could have prepared us for what came next."

Death in a Northern Town continues with No Rest for the Living. Journal entries from survivor John Diant bring you the zombie apocalypse from his perspective whilst chapters bring you tales from the town and the struggles that survivors continue to face.

Absolutely brilliant again! I had to stop myself laughing my head off at 3am in case I woke my husband. These books are so funny,gory and well written. This one was a bit more serious than the first poor Jonathan being killed that way to was not good I’m sad to see him go but I do love an author that doesn’t hold back when finishing characters off not matter the length of time in the book.
I’m really looking forward to the next book.
  
Murder on Sisters’ Row
Murder on Sisters’ Row
Victoria Thompson | 2011 | Mystery
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Rescue Leads to Murder
Midwife Sarah Brandt’s latest client is a woman in an elegant house. However, over the course of her labor, Amy reveals that she is being held against her will by a madam. Sarah enlists some others to help her free Amy and her baby only for someone to turn up dead. With Frank Malloy assigned to the case, the duo finds themselves investigating another intriguing mystery. Can they figure out what happened?

While the book delves into a serious subject, it does it without forcing the details on us, something I appreciated as I read. Instead it does an excellent job of bringing life in 1890’s New York City to life once again and shining the light on another part of society during the time. I love Sarah, Frank, and the rest of the gang. While all the characters shine, there isn’t any movement in the ongoing storylines, so you could jump in here without being too lost. The new characters represent a wide part of society, and they are all brought to life well. The plot kept me engaged. I was a step or two ahead of Sarah and Frank at times, at others I was heading in the wrong direction. Everything comes together for a page turning climax. I’m doing my best to catch up on this series. If you are as behind as I am, you’ll be delighted with this entry in the series.
  
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)
2021 | Action, Adventure, Horror
3
5.5 (10 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Taylor Russell - as in the first film, very watchable (1 more)
Production design of the "games"
The script is lazy, lame and insulting to the audience (1 more)
There are a load of plot holes
Totally clueless
I only gave Adam Robitel's original "Escape Room" 5/10. It was perhaps hoping for too much that his sequel - "Escape Room: Tournament of Champions" - would be better.

Positives:
- As in the first film, Taylor Russell again stands out as a personable, attractive and convincing actress. She deserves a role in something a lot better.
- The production design on the "game sets" is certainly very impressive.

Negatives:
- The fact that SIX people are down with writing credits for this astonishes me. The whole thing comes across as lazily plotted, with virtually no character development of the players. (Yes, even less than the first film.) You might think Nathan (Thomas Cocquerel) as an athletic priest might be an interesting character. I was expecting him at one point to channel the dramatic demise of Gene Hackman's similar character in "The Poseidon Adventure". But no. Nothing much is done with this.
- It's a movie where the more you think about it afterwards, the less sense it makes. Some examples:
-- People are dead, but then again - when inconvenient for the plot - dead no longer.
-- There's some bizarre "daughter kidnap" sub-plot at one point, but that's never referred to again.
-- Acid rain has no effect on a lock... until that is, the rainwater is captured and poured on the lock! Bonkers!
- There's a tragic amount of inane running around and wailing that gets mentally tiresome. You can imagine this written in the script as "Now run down the corridor and adlib some 'teenagers in peril' noises". (This is a best case guess: I'd hate to think that some of the "Quick!"s and "Hurreeeee!"'s had actually been scripted).

Summary Thoughts on "Escape Room: Tournament of Champions": I found this one to be tragically bad. A lame attempt to cash in on the bizarre $155M success of the first B-movie. My personal recommendation: Avoid!

(For the full graphical review, please check out One Mann's Movies on the web, Facebook and Tiktok. Thanks).
  
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Role-Playing
Say Fable, Skyrim, and Dragon Age have a baby and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is the result and what a brilliant result it is. Not only is there a fantastic in depth story created by R.A. Salvatore, there is amazing art work done by Todd McFarlane and an incredible musical score by Grant Kirkhope. Last but not least, there is of course the game's executive designer, Ken Rolston. Together, these individuals made one hell of a RPG video game, that was not only fun to play, it's worth playing through again and again.




The story begins with your character finding himself or herself revived from death by a creation known as the Well Of Souls. This event has disrupted the threads of fate that affect the people and events of Amalur leaving you with no determined fate. This opens you up to many possibilities and of course there are those who would exploit it for their own personal gain.
 With an opening like this, Kingdoms Of Amalur's story has a lot of depth and there are many possibilities that one can take as it progresses. There is so much to explore on the map and there is a freedom to it as you can explore as much as you like. The story line itself leads to you exploring the kingdom of Amalur even further opening up new areas and you are not isolated to just one location.
 All the areas are beautifully done and are different from each other. No similarities or one map used repeatedly here. There is even a dangerous beauty and creativity to all the fantasy monsters that are a threat to you such as mountain trolls. Although you will see some of the same monsters in different areas as well as types of NPCs and other characters, it mixes together so well it doesn't hinder the game play or the story. The dialogue with characters is well written and even more refreshing, well acted. It's never boring and in some dialogues it even adds more to the tale.




 One flaw Kingdoms Of Amalur has is a couple of the quests had a few bugs, such as the Shine And Shadow quest. The quest couldn't be finished because of the quest items not being in the inventory or the Boss for this particular quest just didn't show up. It wasn't a terribly trying ordeal, but it was something that was noticed and something that could and should be fixed. Other than that, there was no other technical issues with the game for me. The game didn't freeze once during all the hours of game play and the frame rate didn't drop, and because of how much fun I had with the game, a couple of quest bugs didn't bother me at all. But, let's move on to the rest of the good.




The core of Kingdoms Of Amalur is the combat throughout the game along with the ability to fully customize your character and play to your character's strengths due to your fate or lack of one. The possibilities are endless and you can even open up new job classes as your character levels up as the game progresses. Award points earned after leveling up can be put into three categories: Might, Finesse, and Sorcery giving you added abilities and status boosts associated with whichever job class you have chosen. Combine this with all the questing and yes, that includes all the side quests, five guild story arcs, and the downloadable content of The Legend Of Dead Kel, that could easily give you 100 hours or more of game time. To sum up, Kingdoms Of Amalur isn't just a run of the mill RPG. It's something more. It has a great mix of excellent story telling, amazing game play, and an exciting world to explore that promises tons of great adventure. Overall, it is a game worth having in a gamer's collection.
  
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Merissa (13169 KP) rated The Cryptic Prophecy (Etherya's Earth #6) in Books

Apr 7, 2022 (Updated Jun 26, 2023)  
The Cryptic Prophecy (Etherya's Earth #6)
The Cryptic Prophecy (Etherya's Earth #6)
Rebecca Hefner | 2021 | Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
THE CRYPTIC PROPHECY is the sixth book in the Etherya's Earth series, but the first one that follows the children of our favourite characters! This time, it's Callie -- the daughter of Arderin and Darkrip, who is also the starring character in an Elven Prophecy that alienates her from her peers, leaving her wide open for being used by others.

Although other characters are in here, the focus is on Callie and Brecken, plus their families. No worries though, because that also includes Callie's parents (in case you were having Darkrip withdrawals!). He's a bit of a one here when he goes in 'I'm your father and I know what's best for you' mode, but Arderin and Callie soon shake that notion from him. Those scenes were so much fun to read!

Brecken is the sole male in his family, his father having died years before. He adores his mum and will do anything for his sisters, including writing the most beautiful love letters to Callie, on behalf of someone else! I don't want to talk about 'the other man' though - he doesn't deserve the page space!! Brecken is well-deserving of his nickname Shakespeare and made my heart melt with every letter!

Tatiana plays a bigger role and finally picks a side, which opens up the way the following books will go. I did wonder where we'd be going next, but now, I'm fully on board and (once again) can't wait to read more.

Callie and Brecken are steaming-hot, whilst also being caring, loving, and romantic enough to make anyone's cold, dead heart beat again. I have absolutely adored this series but I think Callie and Brecken are my new favourites.

Oh, and that prophecy? It's fulfilled but not in the way you suspect, and that's ALL I'm going to say. If you want to know more - read the book!!! Just remember to start at book one though, so you get the full experience. Trust me, you won't regret it.

** same worded review will appear elsewhere **

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Apr 5, 2022
  
Rembrandt's J'accuse (2008)
Rembrandt's J'accuse (2008)
2008 | International, Documentary, Musical
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Really informative and insightful at first, laugh out loud funny and crazy later. (0 more)
I think Greenaway was serious. He might have had a stroke. No one would know. (0 more)
So insightful, so insane
This thing dives deep into bananas, and then keeps swimming downwards, until it finds a trench of crazy to swim right into and explore exhaustively.


A list of my favorite things:


-The urgency with which he is trying to solve a hundreds year old murder

-The floating head depositions

-"31 mysteries PLUS ONE"


-"...and a dog"


-"It might not be what you oughtn't to think it is not." And other such sentences.


-The fact that he sprinkles in actual, good points- and then promptly goes back to being bonkers


-"Only the dead..."


-"...saying that he is, in fact...satan's shorty?"


-"a midget transexual prostitute"


-The frantic graphics


Among other gems. So good at being both informative and just... I don't even know.
So many drinking games to be had.
Always watch with someone else, the "did that just happen? did he just really say that?" will be distracting otherwise.


Highly recommend, but it is really hard to find.